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Frank Goldwasser - How a Boy From Paris Found the BluesArticle and Photos By Greg Johnson CBA BluesNotes February 2006 |
“Frank is an amazing guy,” states Byrd Hale, renowned Blues radio host from Stanford University. “There’s not a lot of white guys that I would call Bluesmen. White guys don’t have that right, because they were never in fear of being hanged, profiled by the police, or picked cotton. They didn’t even come from the bloodline. But there’s a few that I would call Bluesmen. Paul Oscher is one, Paul Butterfield was one and Charlie Musselwhite, too. But I’d say of any of the younger cats, Frank Goldwasser has the pedigree. Because he really did pay his dues.”
It may not have been the same path that many of the traditional African-American artists paved on the road to the Blues. But Frank Goldwasser overcame a different set of odds. Though self-imposed, he traveled the crossroads laid before him, and has proved over the past twenty-plus years that he is one of the elite Blues guitarists to be found anywhere.
As long as he can remember, Frank Goldwasser knew that he would someday live in America. It had been implanted into his mind by his father, whose family had migrated to New York City for two short years following the Second World War. Being Polish Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, immigrating to America was not an uncommon practice during the period. But Frank’s grandfather did not care for life in New York and took his family back to Europe, settling in France. Those two years were enough to enchant Frank’s father, however. A young teenager at the time, he was fascinated by American culture, which he would later pass on to his son in the form of comic books, movies and of course, music.
Frank was only six years old when his father gave him his first albums. They were collections of “Songs of the American Civil War,” sung by artists such as Pete Seeger. Certainly not the type of music you’d expect a child growing up in Paris to latch on to. Yet for Frank, it did. It must have been quite a spectacle to witness this young French boy walking to school singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
As he grew older, he heard the popular music of the day. But it wasn’t anything that held his attention. Music just wasn’t something that occupied his mind much at all. That is, until he met the Blues.
Frank made his first album purchase in the mid-1970s. It was Hound Dog Taylor’s “Natural Boogie.” At first, the record didn’t grab him, but about six months later he gave it another listen. The sound transfixed him. He’d never really heard anything like it before. And he wanted to learn how he could create this music on his own.
When his father was a child, his parents had bought him a guitar. A classical acoustic model, he never found the time to learn how to play. That guitar, Frank recalls, was always around the house. And now that the Blues had taken possession of his mind, Frank began to work with the instrument seeking how this magical music was played. All his life, Frank’s father had told him it was a dream of his that his son would one day learn to play the guitar. Now his dream was coming true.
Being infatuated with the Blues in the mid-1970s was not something that could be easily remedied in Paris. Frank describes it as a solitary experience. Only a couple of record outlets in the city even offered American Blues music, and they were run by guys ten-to-fifteen years his senior. But they were Blues aficionados, and became the first people Frank was able to connect with regarding this style of music.
One of these individuals was also the editor of Europe’s oldest Blues and Soul publication, “Soul Bag.” He would promote traveling Blues shows that came to Europe, usually packages combining acts from American festivals. Frank’s father would take his son to these events and he recalls the first package he attended was a Chicago Blues Festival grouping that occurred in 1975. The headliner was none other than Muddy Waters. It became an annual event and Frank began hanging out, trying to meet the musicians. After awhile he even was able to sit in and play with people like Sammy Lawhorn, Mighty Joe Young, Luther Allison and Jimmy Dawkins.
For many people first beginning to explore the Blues, the music stemming from Chicago seems to be the easiest to fall in love with. It is obviously the best known. But by the time he was twenty, Frank was already developing a stronger bond to the Blues from America’s West Coast. Promoter Tom Mazzolini brought a San Francisco Blues Festival package to France and Frank literally attached himself to the tour. It was a stellar line-up: Sonny Rhodes, Luther Tucker, Ron Thompson, Mississippi Johnny Waters, J.C. Burris and Little Willie Littlefield. But they were all artists most Europeans were unfamiliar with and the venues were almost completely empty. This didn’t bother Frank, though. He had these guys all to himself.
When the tour ended most of the musicians returned home. But Sonny Rhodes decided to stay behind for a while. It seemed that wherever Sonny went, Frank was there beside him, taking a role as the elder musician’s protégé. So when Sonny was booked for a gig and no longer had his band with him in France, Frank was asked to play the show with him. It was 1981 and Frank’s first real paying Blues gig.
The dream of going to America continued to burn deep inside of Frank. Having fallen in love with the sound of the Bay Area players, he decided that was where he wanted to go. So he asked Sonny, “Do you think if I came to America that I could play?”
“Oh yeah,” said Sonny. “Come to Oakland.”
So Frank dropped out of the art school he was attending and purchased an airline ticket to San Francisco.
Frank knew that he had a cousin who lived in Oakland. Tthe son of his grandfather’s oldest brother, whose family had also migrated to America after the War, settling in California. But there had been no connections within the family for more than thirty years. Frank made contact with his cousin, even learning that his cousin was a lawyer who had several Blues musicians as clients. His cousin welcomed him to stay at his apartment, where Frank lived for the next three months.
Soon after his arrival, Frank tried to locate Sonny Rhodes. But Sonny was nowhere to be found. The only person that he really knew in America and he couldn’t locate him. “Now that’s the Blues,” comments Byrd Hale. So Frank then went searching to locate Eli’s Mile High Club, as Sonny had spoken enthusiastically about the venue.
Eli’s was owned by Troyce Key, a well-known West Coast guitarist who had teamed with Bluesman J.J. Malone during the 1960s. Oakland and nearby Richmond were regarded as having a wealth of outstanding Blues musicians working the East Bay area. But most of the venues, Eli’s included, were almost completely patronized by an African-American audience and there were not too many white performers who were easily welcomed to play in the clubs. You had to prove that you were good enough.
“I interviewed bass player Henry Oden recently,” remarks Byrd Hale. “He told me that in some of these clubs in Oakland and Richmond, if you got up on the stage and you weren’t very good, the audience would take your instrument away from you. And then hand it to somebody else who could play.”
Frank began attending Eli’s regularly and was allowed to sit in with the band. The local musicians were very much impressed with this young, white kid from France who could play Blues guitar so well.
“I think Frank Goldwasser is one of the ‘baddest’ guitar players on the whole circuit,” quips bassist Johnny Ace. “He has great attack, doesn’t overplay and he has the main gift: a true love of the real deep Blues. Frank’s a real artist.”
Frank began sitting in regularly with Troyce’s house band, plus Sunday afternoons accompanying pianist Omar Shariff. It was a true schooling in the Blues and he was gaining a lot of support from the Blues community
After three months, though, Frank had to return to Paris. But he had absolutely no doubt that he was going to move to Oakland permanently. This news was not accepted very well by his parents. Though unhappy with his decision, they knew this was what he wanted and they gave him their blessing anyway. So, after a year back in Paris, Frank made the move to America for good.
The first obstacle he faced upon his return was that his cousin was getting married and he’d have no place to stay. He explained his situation to Troyce Key. Troyce offered Frank a small room upstairs at Eli’s where he could live. Now despite Frank occupying the room, all types of activities were going on inside, both legal and illegal. It was quite a rough experience, but something that Frank considers a part of his Blues education. He lived in the room for several months, but finally he could not take the atmosphere anymore and moved from the club.
In the meantime, his stature among the Blues community was growing stronger every day. Troyce Key was unhappy with his then current guitar player who was just too polished for Troyce’s sound. Troyce wanted to maintain a back-in-the-alley quality. So when he let the guitar player go, he turned to Frank and offered him the position. It was incredible for the twenty-three year old boy from France, who hadn’t even been off the plane two weeks and now he was being offered his dream job. Every Friday and Saturday night he’d be backing some of the most famed Blues musicians in the world, including Lowell Fulson, Jimmy McCracklin, Elvin Bishop, Percy Mayfield, Pee Wee Crayton, Big Mama Thornton, among many others who were regular guests at Eli’s. It all happened so quickly, Frank can barely remember playing with many of these people, though he knows that it did happen.
And it was also Troyce Key who gave Frank Goldwasser his new name: Paris Slim.
Not too long afterward Troyce began talking about breaking up the band. Drinking quite heavily and recently remarried; performing music just wasn’t as satisfying for him anymore. Frank told harmonica player Mark Hummel about Troyce’s plans, plus his own worries about not feeling self-confident. After all, he was still just this French guy who had no business being here playing this type of music. Mark Hummel has always been encouraging to Frank and told him, “Talk to Troyce. Tell him you want the gig. Tell him you’re going to put a band together and to give the gig to you. You can do it!”
So Frank did go to Troyce. And much to his surprise, Troyce told him, “Alright, you’ve got every Friday and Saturday night.” Frank then formed the first incarnation of the Paris Slim Band to work as Eli’s new house band and began booking the club with full access to Troyce Key’s address book. If he wanted to work with somebody special, Troyce just told him, “Go ahead and hire them.” So he brought in people like Cool Papa, Sonny Rhodes and Joe Louis Walker. The bigger acts, like Lowell Fulson or Jimmy McCracklin, Troyce would book for Frank himself. He gained a lot of exposure through this gig at the club. Working with McCracklin even landed him a role as guitarist behind the prolific vocalist on nights Frank was not at Eli’s.
In December of 1984, the Paris Slim Band went to harmonica player Dave Wellhausen’s small recording studio to lay down tracks for Wellhausen’s new label, Back Track. The band recorded a 45-rpm record; a cover of Lowell Fulson’s “Guitar Shuffle,” backed by the song “Stranded.” The single did well in the Bay Area and gained a little attention elsewhere.
A couple of years later, Frank and Byrd Hale took a road trip to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Along the way, they stopped at a small Blues club in Phoenix. Glancing at the club’s juke box, they discovered the Paris Slim single was in the machine. Byrd immediately began to tell everybody in the club that Frank was “Paris Slim.” But nobody would believe him.
When Frank was not working at Eli’s, he could be found at many different clubs throughout the Bay Area. He met guitarist Tim Kaihatsu who was hosting the Blue Monday Party at Larry Blake’s club in Berkeley. The Blue Monday Party, like Eli’s, attracted many of the best artists in the region, such as Luther Tucker, Ron Thompson, Freddie Roulette or Norton Buffalo. He had become such a mainstay with this weekly gig, that when Kaihatsu joined the Robert Cray Band, Frank became the host for this popular weekly show, too.
Tim Kaihatsu was quite impressed with Frank’s guitar prowess. So when he heard that Harmonica legend Charlie Musselwhite was looking for a new guitarist, he suggested Frank Goldwasser. Musselwhite called him right away, but Frank thought that he being tricked by Mark Hummel, who has a uncanny knack for impersonating other Blues musicians. Musselwhite had always been one of Mark’s best, too. So naturally Frank thought it was just Mark calling. But Charlie gave Frank his phone number and told him to call back if was interested. Frank began to have second thoughts, “What if this actually was Charlie Musselwhite? Did I just blow something really big for me?” So he did call back and discovered it was in fact Musselwhite who had called him! He took the gig and played with Musselwhite throughout the region for the next year.
Over the next few years, Frank was all over the Bay Area performing. He spent time playing with pianist Mitch Woods, including two cross-country tours that featured a gigs in New Orleans and Austin, Texas. He also filled the guitar position with The Dynatones for a while and worked with saxophonist Terry Hanck as well.
Another weekly show that Frank always made a point to make involved a two-hour drive every Thursday to Occidental, California. The main reason he made the trek was that the show was run by Nick Gravenites, who had made his mark in the Blues in Chicago with friends Michael Bloomfield and Harvey Mandel. Gravenites was always kind of considered as the honorary Jew of the Blues, so when Frank showed up, he took a shining to this Jewish kid who’d traveled all the way from Paris to America to play the Blues. It struck something inside of him and he took Frank under his wing.
In 1989, Gravenites was approached to reform the Electric Flag for a series of shows commemorating the 20th anniversary of Woodstock. And he asked Frank if he would fill the role of Michael Bloomfield? Many people mentioned to Frank that they could hear Bloomfield in a lot of his playing. But Frank hadn’t really listened to much of the late guitarist’s playing. It was just a coincidence. Upon hearing that he’d be playing Bloomfield’s part in the shows, several people pointed out what a huge responsibility this was. Eddie Van Halen and Sammy Hagar, hanging out backstage at the show in Lancaster informed him he had pretty big shoes to fill. Perhaps the harshest person to deal with of all was Electric Flag keyboardist Barry Goldberg. He expected Frank to replicate the songs note-for-note as Bloomfield originally played them. It wasn’t easy, but they ran through numbers like “Killing Floor” and “Groovin’ Is Easy” and Frank pulled the shows off without a hitch.
That same year saw the debut of the first Paris Slim Band album. Recorded in California with musicians like Tim Kaihatsu, Jimmy Pugh and Rick Estrin, “Blues For Esther” was released by a European label called Blue Sting. And surprising to Frank, it was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award as best European recording.
Frank has played the San Francisco Blues Festival numerous times. First with Troyce Key and most recently with The Mannish Boys. In the late 1980s the Paris Slim Band was hired for the first time to be the opening set on Saturday, with Chicago Bluesman Jimmy Johnson to follow. It was almost a catastrophe. While driving to the event his car broke down on the Bay Bridge. The brakes had gone out. But they were determined to make the festival so with one person running in front of the car making sure people got out of the way, they drove five miles an hour all the way to the event. They missed their opening set, but Johnson had filled in and they took the second set instead.
In the early 1990s, Paris Slim got another big festival break when promoter Delmark Goldfarb hired the band to play at the Rose City Blues Festival (now known as the Waterfront Blues Festival) in Portland, Oregon. It was a huge opportunity for the band looking to gain major exposure. Frank recalls the set perfectly. The band seemed to be in a groove and the audience was reciprocating. There was a line of fans waiting for autographs afterward. So his anticipation was high when he picked up a copy of The Oregonian the next day and noticed a nice story in the paper. He read it over and over though, and much to his amazement there was no mention of the band playing. The article spoke of the band before and the one after their set, but it was as if they were never even there. To this day, he can’t figure out why he was left out of the article.
Over the ensuing years, Frank Goldwasser recorded many times with a variety of people. His second Paris Slim album, “Bleeding Heart,” on the Globe label, came out in 1996. It was a long hard time putting it together, though. For some reason it just didn’t sound right to him and he set it aside. A few months later he returned to the project and brought in Joe Louis Walker as co-producer to help fit it all together. They basically reworked the entire content and the effort paid off as the album received exceptional reviews from almost everywhere.
For a while, Frank worked with Mountain Top Records, introduced to the label’s owner, Charlie Buttrice, by Byrd Hale. Harmonica player Gary Smith was making an instructional video and he wanted a guitarist to back him on the project. That’s how Frank was brought in. From there Frank worked on an instructional video of his own for Blues guitar. An intense project that was simultaneously recorded in two languages for releases in both English and French, it took a lot of work. Yet nearly ten years later it still has not been released by the label, much to Frank’s chagrin.
Mountain Top did group him with Gary Smith, bassist Johnny Ace and drummer Big Walter Shufflesworth from The Dynatones for sessions that resulted with the album “Mountain Top West Coast Summit – Be Careful What You Wish For.” Frank’s efforts were again highly praised by critics. He went on to participate with a series of albums for Fillmore Slim. And then went into the studio to record a CD to be released under his own name alongside guitarist Rusty Zinn. Frank believes these sessions produced the best music he has ever created. But like the instructional video, Mountain Top will not release it and it frustrates Frank immensely.
In 1998, Frank and his wife moved to Santa Barbara, California to be near his father-in-law who had suffered a heart attack. While living there he made contact with drummer Chris Millar, a major player with Fedora Records. The two had met years earlier in the Bay Area and Frank was impressed with the work Chris was doing with the label. Millar began to hire Frank to participate in a number of sessions for Fedora, with the results being his inclusion on many fine albums by artists like Jimmy Dawkins, Hosea Leavy, Harmonica Slim, Willie Kent and J.J. Malone.
Perhaps the most important change for Frank Goldwasser during this period was the fact that he reclaimed his own name as an artist. He had grown tired of being Paris Slim and decided that he just wanted to back other musicians rather than leading his own band.
One day Frank received a phone call from promoter Michael Koffer, who was looking for a guitarist to play behind Billy Boy Arnold and Finis Tasby at the Ojai Bowlful of Blues Festival. Jumping at the chance to work with these artists, he was put in touch with their manager Randy Chortkoff. Originally, guitarist Alex Schultz was scheduled for the gig, but other commitments called him away. Chortkoff must have been impressed with how the shows came off, because following a recording project in Europe he contacted Frank and told him he wanted to take on something new. What he had in mind was a Frank Goldwasser CD, and he’d pay for everything!
It’s not often that somebody comes to you with an armload of money and says, “Let’s make a record.” But Frank didn’t want to do a straight Blues record. On the chance of not being very popular he wanted to experiment with a new approach. So he asked a wide range of players to be involved. Phillip Walker was one, because he is one of Frank’s heroes and he’d helped give him a break when he was a young kid in Paris, allowing him to sit in with him. And J.J. Malone, who was instrumental for Frank’s early days in the Bay Area. He also invited guitarists Alex Schultz and Kirk Fletcher; two people he’d never met before but had heard a lot about. He even asked tabla player Souhail Kaspar to take part in the sessions. The result was the sensational “Bluju” album, released on Germany’s Cross Cut Records. Frank’s guitar work is impeccable, with perhaps the highlight on the album being the song “Three Sisters” which tells the story of Oakland at the tail end of the city’s Blues boom. Frank calls off the names the people from his memories and sadly passes on that the scene no longer exists.
After “Bluju,” Randy Chortkoff contacted Frank requesting his support for Blues legend Jody Williams on a West Coast swing of his come-back tour. Frank impressions about his time working with the guitarist are mixed. Jody is a fun guy to be around and he loves to talk. If you want to hear stories about Howlin’ Wolf and Bo Diddley, he’s more than willing to go on for hours. But playing on stage with him is another story. Jody loves to play and loves to solo. In fact, his solos can go on extensively because he’s having such a good time. The only problem with this is, Jody forgets to let the other people in the band have their own solos, which can become quite monotonous for the audience and frustrating for the musicians.
Randy Chortkoff is full of ideas. His next was to create a Blues super group that everybody would want to book. Named The Mannish Boys, it was an all-star cast made up of Finis Tasby on vocals, pianist Leon Blue, drummer June Core, bassist Ronnie James, Randy blowing harp and Kirk Fletcher and Frank trading riffs on guitar. To add more flavor, an array of special guests were also included on the sessions. On paper the idea was spectacular. But it was yet another project that seemed to go on forever. Randy had brought in a handful of cover songs he wanted to use for the sessions that produced the album “That Represent Man.” They were really funky numbers, but they were also authentic Blues that had a raggedy sound and full of mistakes in their original mix. Randy wanted to replicate this sound. The younger musicians who were used to modern studio technology were able to comprehend the idea. But Randy wanted it just right, having the group play the same songs over and over again, causing questions to arise in the elder musicians minds, “Was this guy insane?” All their lives they had been recording songs to be hits, yet here was this guy who wanted them to mimic this raggedy sounding music. But whatever the thoughts of the time, the album was quite successful and has even received nomination for the Blues Music Awards as both Traditional and Blues Albums of the Year.
The other portion of Chortkoff’s vision for The Mannish Boys took a different path however. Frank warned Randy from the beginning that he would never be able to put this group on the road. Most of the people had their own careers playing with other groups. Ronnie James was with the Thunderbirds, June with The Nightcats and Kirk Fletcher was originally with Charlie Musselwhite and later with the T-Birds. So the band that created the debut album has never played on stage together. Instead, Randy brought in drummer Richard Innes, Tom Leavy on bass and Kid Ramos for guitar. It is a completely different band with its own unique sound far from the first Mannish Boys.
The main difference with the newer version is that it is a Kid Ramos showcase. There’s just no way around it. Kid has had this effect with every group he’s played with. Audiences love Kid and he knows how to command a stage. But Frank doesn’t feel that he connects playing with Kid as he felt he did with Kirk Fletcher. But this on-stage grouping of The Mannish Boys still thrills audiences and a second CD from the band’s performance at the Winthrop Blues Festival, titled appropriately “Live & In Demand” has been issued.
Frank has made several trips to Europe over the years performing at festivals throughout the continent. At the Spring Blues Festival in Belgium, Frank has been allowed to bring in friends of his own choosing to perform with him. In 2003, he had been working around California in a trio comprised of harp man R.J. Mischo, guitarist Steve Freund and himself. The group went to Belgium where they were billed as the Down Home Super Trio and they were quite a huge hit with the audience. So much so that Cross Cut Records asked if they would like to have the play at the Lucerne Blues Festival later that summer and they would do a recording. The only catch being, they couldn’t pay them for this. The idea caught on with Frank and Mischo, both desperate to have more product available for their fans. But Freund chose not to participate. They still wanted to make the record, though, so they recruited drummer Richard Innes seeing that he was playing with Kim Wilson on the festival’s line-up. Special guests guitarists Alex Schultz and Billy Flynn also sat in. Frank admits he was quite nervous for the show and drank too much beforehand. Listening to the “Down Home Super trio” CD now, he thinks to himself, “Oh my God, why did I do this?” But the intent, much like that of the first Mannish Boys album, was to produce something that sounded kind of funky and raggedy, and he feels that they accomplished that.
After living in Santa Barbara for six years, Frank and his wife decided it was time to move once again. Santa Barbara is quite an expensive city to reside. So they focused their minds to two cities in which to relocate. They chose the first, Paris, and made the move in early 2005. It was a short-lived move, though, as Frank’s wife found the city too sprawling and noisy. So this past fall, they resorted to Plan B and returned to the West Coast, settling in Portland, Oregon.
Why Portland? For various reasons. Frank had played several times in Portland, with the Paris Slim Band, with Jody Williams and The Mannish Boys. He always enjoyed these trips and the reception he received in the city. He figured that this was a place where he could come, play and be accepted by the local musicians and fans. One of their best friends had also recently married a guy from Portland. She continuously told them how much she liked the city and to come see it for themselves. So they came and visited, staying at their friend’s home. Finding Portland to their liking, they purchased a home.
Frank had always been impressed by the music he had heard at the Waterfront Blues Festival, but once he started hitting the venues around Portland he was amazed at the quality of music he found consistently around town. So much so, that he wants to share it with the people in Europe. His plans for this year’s Spring Blues Festival in Belgium will be to present the Blues of Portland; something that he believes will continue for the next several years as Europeans will begin to discover this area’s exceptional Blues talent. For the first year, he has already discussed and is arranging to take keyboard player D.K. Stewart and guitarist Lloyd Jones. A pair that will nicely represent Portland across the ocean. And Frank already has ideas for who he is thinking of taking next year, too!
As for now, Frank Goldwasser is starting to feel his way around the venues of Portland. After being here only a few short months, he has discovered a deep wealth of Blues talent around the city. For now, he has been taking it slowly, sitting in at jams and as a guest artist with friends like Bill Rhoades recently at The Cascade Bar & Grill. But don’t expect him to settle for this too long. He fully intends on piecing his own group together and making a name for himself in Portland. And with his Blues pedigree, he’ll be capturing all of our attention quite quickly.